A wide variety of telecommunications, video display, and other electronic systems transmit binary coded decimal (BCD) data from one point to another. These transmissions may be via satellite, optical fiber, electrical wires, and other connections. In transmitting BCD data, a significant portion of the transmission time is spent transmitting data that is redundant or that is of only marginal valuable. Without some way to avoid transmitting much of this relatively valueless data, processing equipment speed may become the only parameter that can affect the data flow rate from one point to another.
Another important aspect of BCD digital data is that it consumes a significant amount of storage space. If a method existed to reduce the amount of space necessary to store BCD data and that did not sacrifice data accuracy, it would be possible to include within a memory or other storage device a significantly larger amount of information.
Recognizing these needs, numerous attempts exist to compress data from its original BCD form to a form that requires less transmission time, Once received, decompression of the transmitted data occurs in an attempt to re-generate the original BCD data. For example, video compression methods have been derived by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), and an organization known as P*64. In general, these techniques remove certain pieces of data or pixels from the video image. These approaches generally fail, however, to properly address practical issues such as economy, quality, consumer acceptance and ease of access. For example, one of these methods is known as delta or differential coding and was derived by JPEG. This process looks at each scan line of a data block such as a television frame and compares it to the same line in a previous frame. If the information content has not changed, a simple signal to the receiver is all that is needed. There is no need to re-transmit the line. The television receiver retrieves the previous line from its memory and re-displays the data. If there is a change, on the other hand, only the changes (i.e., the delta part) is transmitted. This method eliminates data values to make the BCD files smaller.
An important limitation of this and other similar methods is that, as data values are removed to make data files smaller, a loss of data results. This data is generally not restored in any subsequent decompression or re-generation steps. Therefore, while such video compression techniques may yield significant compression ratios, as the ratios increase these techniques lose more data. This results in significant resolution losses, streaks, tears and picture break-ups.
Consequently, there is a need for a method and system that reduces the amount of time necessary to transmit BCD data from one point to another and that avoids the resolution losses, streaks, tears, picture break-ups and other problems associated with existing methods of compressing BCD data.
There is a need for a system of reducing BCD data storage requirements for a wide variety of applications that also avoids the limitations known BCD data compression techniques.